"A concise, wide-ranging synthesis
of the history of alternative medicine in the United States,
its social composition, and its relations to conventional biomedicine."David Hess, author of Science
and the New Age

Examining medical pluralism in the United States from the
Revolutionary War period through the end of the twentieth century,
Hans Baer brings together in one convenient reference a vast
array of information on healing systems as diverse as Christian
Science, osteopathy, acupuncture, Santeria, southern Appalachian
herbalism, evangelical faith healing, and Navajo healing.

In a country
where the dominant paradigm of biomedicine (medical schools,
research hospitals, clinics staffed by M.D.s and R.N.s,) has
been long established and supported by laws and regulations,
the continuing appeal of other medical systems and subsystems
bears careful consideration. Distinctions of class, Baer emphasizes,
as well as differences in race, ethnicity, and gender, are fundamental
to the diversity of beliefs, techniques, and social organizations
represented in the phenomenon of medical pluralism.

Baer traces
the simultaneous emergence in the nineteenth century of formalized
biomedicine and of homeopathy, botanic medicine, hydropathy,
Christian Science, osteopathy, and chiropractic. He examines
present-day osteopathic medicine as a system parallel to biomedicine
with an emphasis on primary care; chiropractic, naturopathy,
and acupuncture as professionalized heterodox medical systems;
homeopathy, herbalism, bodywork, and lay midwifery in the context
of the holistic health movement; Anglo-American religious healing;
and folk medical systems, particularly among racial and ethnic
minorities. In closing, he focuses on the persistence of folk
medical systems among working-class Americans and considers the
growing interest of biomedical physicians, pharmaceutical and
health care corporations, and government in the holistic health
movement

Hans A. Baer is professor of anthropology at the University
of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is the author or editor of eight
books on anthropological aspects of race, religion, and medicine,
including Encounters with Biomedicine: Case Studies in Medical
Anthropology.

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July 2001
LC: 00-012733 RA
248 pp. 6 x 9 240 pp.

The cloth edition, ISBN 978-0-299-16690-2, is out of print, but the paperback is still available.